


A Tie That We Cannot Break

by MissMorwen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Eventual Smut, F/M, Idiots in Love, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, at least that's the plan, still not over the damn pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29107143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMorwen/pseuds/MissMorwen
Summary: “If soulmarks are so stupid, why are you always touching yours?” Steve said.Bucky only caught the flicker of something that looked a lot like fear on Natalia’s face. Then her features hardened, and she pulled her left sleeve up, revealing a scar that had faded since the last time he'd seen it. A line of silver that stretched from above her wrist to a few inches below the inside of her elbow. The skin around it was pale and unblemished, a far cry from the scratched-up mess it had been when—when they’d been more than just friends.“I don’t have a mark anymore. They removed it in the Red Room.” Her voice was like glass, clear, brittle, and sharp enough to draw blood.*************An exploration of the bond between soulmates.Or, you know, the soulmate trope used as an excuse for yet another pining fic. This one with extra pining.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 34
Kudos: 92
Collections: WinterWidow





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is take from Bastille's Another Place after stillgirlfrommars suggested it to help me come up with a title. That song is pretty much the perfect Red Room era BuckyNat song.

“You know,” Bucky said, “when Stark said he was throwing a small party, this wasn’t what I imagined.” The mirror behind the bar let him survey the lounge behind him while they waited for the bartender to finish filling their order. This early in the evening, a lot of people were still milling around from group to group. The scattered islands of sofas and chairs had people sitting or clustered around them, same as the bar where he and Sam were waiting for their drinks, but a good third of the guests were still ambling around. Too many Bucky didn’t know and didn’t have any inclination to interact with.

Sam chuckled. “You should see the parties he usually throws. At least I can name everyone here tonight.”

“Can you? Without asking Steve for help?”

“Most of them,” Sam amended.

“My point exactly,” Bucky said.

The bartender poured a glass of the wine Natalia had asked for next to the five bottles of beer and one coke. Avoiding the glass, Bucky picked up four bottles and left Sam to get the rest.

“Are you being forced to be here? Blink twice if you are,” Sam stage-whispered when he caught up with him.

“Yeah, by Steve,” Bucky said. “I think you’ve met him.”

His shit-eating grin widened. “My apologies.”

The thing was that it was only half true. Sure, Steve had talked him into going, but it was Natalia showing up without Barton at her side that had made him stay. He was glad she had found someone to make her happy. He just wasn’t enough of a masochist to want to watch her smile at the archer the way she used to smile at him.

He hadn’t realized he was staring at Natalia till they were nearing the group, and she turned her head and met him with a frown. Fuck. She had noticed even if he hadn’t. Holding up the bottles to cover up for his lapse, he announced, “Get ‘em while they’re cold.” Setting all but one of the bottles on the table, he slunk off and took a corner-seat where he didn’t have to look at Natalia unless he turned his head.

“My nana didn’t have a soulmark,” Sharon said, continuing the conversation Bucky had interrupted. “When the other kids at school found out, they teased her about it. Said she’d never have kids without a soulmate.”

“Was that a common superstition in America? Not having children?” Cho said. “In South Korea, people used to believe that anyone without a mark was more likely to be unfaithful.”

“Not just America,” Wanda said. There was a twist to her mouth that made Bucky suspect she was one of the lucky ones who had been born without a mark. Though she clearly didn’t consider herself to be lucky.

“That just proves how ridiculous the whole thing is,” Natalia said, gesturing at Sam who had sat down next to Steve. “Look at the two of you. How would you have met if Cap hadn’t been part of the Super Soldier program _and then_ stuck in the ice for decades?”

Sam took Steve’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and held it up so he could kiss the back of it. “It was meant to be.” It would have been obnoxious if not for how fond he sounded.

She rolled her eyes, doing a lousy job of looking annoyed instead of amused and Bucky had to bite his lip not to laugh.

“All I’m saying is that don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” said Sam.

“I haven’t tried ricin yet. Would you be okay with me judging it without tasting it first?” Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked at him, honey dripping off every word.

Sam opened his mouth to argue, but Bucky beat him to the punch. “That’s not true.”

Natalia’s eyes narrowed a little as she shifted her focus over to him, nailing him to his seat. “Please tell me you haven’t joined ‘team soulmates are awesome,’ Barnes. I need to know there’s still someone sane around here.”

“Oh no,” Bucky said, “I’m with you on that one, but didn’t you get shot with a dart laced with ricin in Omsk?”

The annoyance melted away as if it had never been there. She tilted her head in a perfect imitation of contemplation. “True, but I still haven’t tasted it. Maybe it’ll be different that way.”

He shrugged. “It’s supposed to taste bitter, so probably not worth it.”

“If soulmarks are so stupid, why are you always touching yours?” Steve said.

Bucky only caught the flicker of something that looked a lot like fear on Natalia’s face. Then her features hardened, and she pulled her left sleeve up, revealing a scar that had faded since the last time he’d seen it. A line of silver that stretched from above her wrist to a few inches below the inside of her elbow. The skin around it was pale and unblemished, a far cry from the scratched-up mess it had been when—when they’d been more than just friends.

“I don’t have a mark anymore. They removed it in the Red Room.” Her voice was like glass, clear, brittle, and sharp enough to draw blood.

“I don’t want to contradict you, but you can’t remove a soulmark,” Cho said, apparently oblivious to Natalia’s tone.

“Yeah, you can,” Bucky said, baring his metal forearm and pointing at the scar on Natalia’s. Heat throbbed through his arm. The mark might have gone with the flesh and bone of his left arm, but there were times when he could still feel it as if it wasn’t all metal and wires now.

“Not like that.” Cho paused, then said, “If you had children, you wouldn’t expect them to inherit your bionic arm. Much like how children wouldn’t inherit other augmentations like cosmetic surgery. You still have your soulmark whether or not you can see it. It’s in your DNA.”

Natalia had wrapped her hand over the scar, her fingers dug into her forearm hard enough to turn her fingertips white. It looked painful.

“How come it isn’t inheritable then?” said Sharon.

“This isn’t my field of study, but my understanding is that there are a large number of genes involved in determining if you have a soulmark. It isn’t like determining eye color with a Punnett square,” Cho explained.

“This is riveting, but there’s a cigarette with my name on and I’d hate to keep it waiting.” Natalia stood and nodded imperceptibly at the door leading out of the ballroom onto the terrace when he looked at her.

Bucky got up and followed her, not bothering to excuse himself.

Once they were outside, he said, “Did you lure me outside just to steal my cigarettes?”

“How dare you. I would never,” Natalia said mildly, then produced a packet of cigarettes from God knew where. Her dress looked like it barely left room enough for her to breathe in, let alone conceal anything larger than a quarter. “My treat this time.” There were benches placed at regular intervals and she led them towards an empty one that had its back to the building and a view of the trees surrounding the Avengers Facility.

He sat down on the bench as far from her as he could and reached over to take a cigarette when she offered him the packet, holding still as she lit it for him.

The silence was nice after the constant hubbub of people talking. The air felt cleaner, too, despite the smoke filling his lungs. Bucky stretched, nearly bumping her foot with his in the progress. She didn’t seem to notice it, though, too busy with snaking her finger up under her sleeve to scratch her scar.

“It still itches?”

Her hand froze mid-scratch, and she shook her head. “Only sometimes.”

“So, that’s why you’re not scratching yourself bloody anymore,” he said drily.

She huffed out a laugh and took a pull from her cigarette, holding her breath before she exhaled, then said, “Why is it that everyone’s so obsessed with soulmarks? Being forced to be with someone without either having any say in the matter. It’s so, so…” She waved her hands, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke.

“So like brainwashing that it makes you wanna throw up?” Bucky suggested. He wished he’d taken his beer with him when they left the party. He could have used it to get the sour taste out of his mouth.

“Exactly.” Natalia twisted around on the bench, tucking one leg under her to sit facing him. “Everyone sees it as this big be-all and end-all, but all the mark does is take away your choice.” She sounded bitter. Did Barton have a soulmark, too, or was it her own mark she was angry about? He wouldn’t blame her if she was. He hadn’t been all that happy when the slow tickle of returning memories had revealed his mark to him and with it the realization of who he was tied to. “Being with someone is supposed to be a choice, not something that’s forced on you because of a soulmark.”

He couldn’t bear to look at her, at the pain in her eyes, so he shifted his focus to the trees. “Only a choice if both want the same.”

She was silent for a few seconds, then said, “I suppose so.”

The silence stretched out between them. Nothing nice about it this time. When he was about to excuse himself and slink away, she spoke.

“I’m glad you got out, too.” Natalia’s voice was as soft as silk and nearly inaudible. “Glad you get to make your own choices now.”

Bucky cleared his throat. “Yeah?” There was a painfully optimistic lilt to his voice, and he hated himself for it. “Yeah,” he repeated in a tone that didn’t make him sound like a lovestruck schoolboy. “I’m glad you had the good sense to escape that hellhole when you had the chance.”

She didn’t answer, and he nearly fucking jumped out of his skin when she reached over and squeezed his knee before getting up and walking back inside. He sat there, staring at the empty seat she left behind. His left arm throbbed with pain and he shifted the cigarette to his right hand to avoid crushing it. On his knee, the touch of her hand burned hotter than the embers at the tip of the cigarette.

Fuck it.

This early in the evening there would usually still be people at the shooting range, but with the party going on, the odds were that it would be empty. He needed to stop himself from thinking, from obsessing. Target practice might do the trick. Giving his hands something to do usually meant his mind would follow their lead. Bucky stubbed out the cigarette and headed to the range.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky has a nightmare and deals with it by beating up a perfectly innocent heavy bag and Natasha tries to help but doesn't always succeed.

Bucky woke up gasping. The dream evaporated when he opened his eyes. All that remained of it was an echo of someone crying out from the pain he’d caused and the memory of blood spilling over his hands. They still felt sticky with it, like he had clots junking up the joints. Not even a close inspection could dispel that feeling.

He needed to get up. He needed to move.

Stumbling into the bathroom, Bucky set about washing off blood that wasn’t there. A nail brush allowed him to clean between the plates, not an inch of his hands escaped being soaped up and scrubbed. Seeing the soapy water run clear dispelled the remnants of the feeling of blood covering his hands. Clean skin and cleaner metal. He let out a breath and some of the tension went with it.

The urge to move still clawed at him, though. Not as urgently as before, but enough that he didn’t much feel like being alone with his thoughts for company. He returned to his bedroom and the clock on the nightstand told him that it wasn’t yet four in the morning. His bed was big and empty and going back to it would leave him tossing and turning for the few hours there was left of the night. No point in trying then. Besides, he could go days without sleep before it did any damage because of the serum. Well, without any further damage.

He dug out the clothes he’d worn yesterday when working out. They smelled of sweat but it hadn’t gone sour yet. He wasn’t gonna win a beauty contest, anyway. His scruff was beginning to enter beard territory and his hair badly needed to be washed but pulling it away from his face with a hair tie would have to do. At this time of night, he was only at risk of running into fellow insomniacs. Who cared what he looked like? Not him.

Off to the gym, then, and the peace of mind it might offer.

The light wasn’t on when Bucky reached the gym and he asked FRIDAY to keep it off. He could see well enough by the light from the corridor. Another perk of the serum. Wrapping his hands before starting had become a habit and he did it without thinking. The ritual of it eased him a little. Made him feel a little less restless. Seeing the silver star embroidered on the outside of wristbands worked its own kind of magic on him, too.

He should get Natalia something in return for the hand wraps. She’d claimed to have given them to him to stop him from wearing down the heavy bags with his metal fist, but he knew her better than that. She cared more about her friends than she allowed anyone to see. Always had. The silver star embroidered on black fabric was more than enough proof of that.

Bottom line was that she cared. She even cared enough about Bucky to buy gifts for him even though it should have been the other way around for all that he owed her. His life, his sanity, his—

“It gets better, you know,” Natalia’s voice came behind him, smooth as a sharp knife slicing through flesh.

He hit the bag so hard the hinges squeaked from the strain as it swung wildly. Steadying it was easier than steadying his breathing.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will get better,” she continued as if she hadn’t almost given him a heart attack.

“What? My boxing skills?” he asked, playing dumb. As good as she was, there was no way she could read his mind. She’d have put him out of his misery a long time ago if she could.

“The nightmares. The urge to hit something until you can no longer feel or think.” Natalia huffed out a breath. “Easier to deal with, anyway. Not sure it ever goes away completely.” She paused and he could hear her shift behind him, fabric rubbing against fabric. “But the nightmares become less frequent. You get more good nights than bad.”

“Can’t wait.”

The heavy bag had stilled completely, robbing him of his excuse to keep his back to her. Rolling his shoulders to relieve tension that never seemed to go away completely, he turned around to face her.

She was standing a few paces away with a bottle of water in one hand and a towel and hand wraps in the other. The light streaming in from behind her turned her into a black cardboard cutout. Her face was lost in the shadows, but her pulled back hair shone like a red halo around it. She looked harmless standing there. The tilt of her hips exaggerated her narrow waist and the curves of her legs. Soft, approachable, and not at all like the skilled fighter she really was.

He was staring. Didn’t have the benefit of having his face hidden in shadows. He snapped his eyes up to her shrouded face and sought for something to say. Something to break this uncomfortable silence.

“Do you want to spar?” Natalia asked, saving his ass.

“Oh God, yes,” he said and didn’t have to fake the relief.

She started to walk towards the corner of the gym where the floor had been covered with mats and Bucky followed mutely.

They had sparred so many times that they had developed a silent rapport. This time wasn’t any different. She pushed him so hard he didn’t have time to think and he did his best to return the favor. He didn’t even notice how much time had passed until he saw the sky had gone from nearly black to dark blue. A sliver of orange was even visible between the trees surrounding the compound.

Distracted, he caught Natalia’s kick by pure instinct.

The kick was solid, and it forced a grunt from him when it connected with his ribs, but he trapped her ankle between his arm and torso. A step forward to keep her unbalanced, then a sweep of his leg to topple her—She jumped, pushing against him. He stumbled, tripped, fell.

Bucky hit the floor hard. Would have rolled to soften it if not for her weight on his chest. Planting his feet on the floor, he tensed to throw her off and continue sparring, but Natalia—Natalia was straddling his chest, her legs framing his sides, her hair falling over her face. Her lips were parted and her eyes—her eyes were wide. Her hands shook where they pushed against his chest.

She had told him once of the reconditioning she’d undergone after their relationship had been discovered in the Red Room. He’d gotten off easy in comparison. All they’d done to him was to wipe his memories and keep him on ice. They needed her fully functioning and obedient.

No wonder she didn’t want to relive that hell.

He cleared his throat and lifted his hands from where they’d been resting on her thighs. Her mouth snapped shut with a click and she scrambled off him as if his touch had burned her.

He stayed on the floor for a heartbeat, two, then got up. “I’m sorry,” Bucky said without being sure which part of this whole mess he meant.

Natalia recovered too quickly for him to get a read on her. “Don’t be. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Her smile was wrong.

“Natasha.”

“Really, Barnes. Don’t.” She rubbed the back of her hand over her forehead. Her hand wraps extended halfway up her arm as always, but now he noticed how red her skin look above the wrap on the left arm. She caught him looking at it and turned it away. “I should be going. Have an early meeting.”

He nodded.

After a few steps, she stopped and turned her face enough for him to see the side of it. “Thank you for sparring with me. I needed to get out of my head.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Me, too.” A second apology was clawing at his throat, but she turned away again before he found the words.

***

The coffee maker in the lounge was an absolute nightmare. It had dials for everything. First, you had to select which of the three containers of coffee beans you wanted, then there was grind amount, cup volume, temperature, sugar or no sugar, milk foamed or poured or anything in-between.

Bucky just wanted a cup of black coffee. Was that too much to ask for?

Didn’t help matters much that whoever had used it before him had set it to make lukewarm dishwater that had about as much caffeine in it as a glass of tap water. Or less than that. Changing the dials had produced a black liquid that resembled coffee the way a house fire resembled a candle. Maybe a setting somewhere between the two previous ones would produce something drinkable?

His phone pinged and when he looked at it there was a text from Natalia. ‘Where r u?’

‘The lounge. Why?’ he sent back.

The reply was a thumbs-up and he stared at it before going back to figuring out the coffee maker. Why did it have to have so many options? He just wanted a cup of coffee, dammit.

When he had finally persuaded the infernal machine to make something that resembled a regular cup of black coffee, Natalia entered the lounge with Barton in tow.

“Could you please tell Clint he’s an idiot?”

“Uh,” said Bucky wittily.

She set down one of the see-through tablet things Stark had invented. Gesturing at it like a magician at a kid’s birthday party, she expanded a map to hover around them. Outlines of buildings and streets glittering in the air.

“This is me,” she pointed at the red dot in the middle of the map. “Even if it is a setup, there’s more than enough escape routes for me to get out, right?”

“What kind of firepower are we talking?”

“Unknown. She usually works alone, but I wouldn’t rule out a collap.”

He took his eyes off the map to look at her. “You’re not giving me a whole lot to work with here.”

“I know, but I have faith in you, Barnes,” she deadpanned. When he didn’t back down, she continued. “If it’s a setup, she’ll use someone else to kill me instead of doing it herself. Money won’t be a problem. She would try to avoid civilian casualties, but it wouldn’t stop her.”

“So, a sniper,” Bucky said.

“That’s what I said,” Barton said with satisfaction.

Natalia let out an exaggerated sigh and shot a narrow-eyed glance at Barton. “Sure, fine, but the only two snipers who have ever managed to hit me are standing in this room.” She tilted her head to the side. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Flippant disregard for her life and limbs. Infuriating.

“You’re not bulletproof, Natasha.”

She glared at him; her frown cut deep lines into her brow. “Come with me then.”

“What,” Bucky said, sucker-punched.

“Thank you!” Barton said.

“Clint is busy and I’m not rescheduling just so the two of you will feel better.”

His mouth was dry. “You’re on a team of superheroes. Why don’t you ask them?” he said instead of turning her down.

“This isn’t superhero business,” Natalia said, not answering his question.

Behind her, Barton folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the counter, and stared up at the ceiling.

She and Barton had done wet work for SHIELD back when they were agents. That set them apart from the rest of the team. Killing during combat was one thing, to do wet work you needed a sense of morality that wasn’t black and white. Bucky knew that all too well, he had been a sniper before Hydra got their hands on him. This particular mission wasn’t wet work, but there could only be one reason why she’d asked him when Barton had turned her down. She needed someone with a more flexible sense of morality than the other Avengers had. Made sense when she was meeting with someone who might or might not try to kill her.

“When do you need me for this thing?” Bucky asked.

“You’ll come with me then?” Her tongue darted out, small and pink, licking over plump lips.

This was a bad idea. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Do you know how much Wilson will give me if I let his best woman get shot before the wedding?”

“Best man of honor,” Barton interjected.

“Ignore him.” Natalia’s smile was small and tender and gone when he blinked. “How does the twenty-fifth work for you?”

“I’m ready when you are.”

***

Two weeks later they were looking at a map of Gozo, the second largest island in the tiny island state of Malta. For once, the map was made of paper instead of insubstantial dots of light hovering in the air. Maybe it was old-fashioned, but there was something a lot more reassuring about the tactile feeling of paper when tracing out routes than the holo-whatever Stark had invented.

The weather was uncomfortably warm. Exiting the private jet Stark had lent them, had felt like walking into a wall of heat. At least Bucky didn’t have to worry about his arm overheating, not even with the photostatic veil making it look like the mirror image of his right arm. Didn’t make it any more bearable, though.

Natalia barely seemed to notice the temperature. She hadn’t even changed out of her long-sleeved shirt. Instead, she looked perfectly comfortable as she traced her route through the town with a finger for the millionth time.

“You still haven’t told me who you’re meeting,” he said to break the silence.

“Does it matter?”

“You tell me. You’ve dodged my question every time I’ve asked so far,” he returned dryly.

She huffed out a laugh, then she looked up from the map, her green eyes steady on him. “I could tell you, but then—”

“You’d have to kill me,” Bucky finished for her.

A smile tugged at the side of her mouth, then she said, “I’m meeting someone from the Red Room. An old friend.”

“Ah,” he said. He hadn’t been wrong about why she hadn’t asked one of the other Avengers. “So that’s why you asked me. The Winter Soldier presents a bigger threat than say Iron Man to a Red Room graduate.”

Natalia inclined her head in a not-quite-nod. “It’s personal rather than business.”

“And still, you can’t rule out the possibility of her meeting you just so she can have you killed.

She glanced up at him with a wry smile. “She _is_ a former Black Widow, but I trust her enough to know that she probably isn’t setting me up.”

“That makes me feel really good about sleeping in the same house as the current Black Widow.”

Natalia’s grin was wide and vicious. “Don’t worry, Barnes. I promised Steve to have you back safe and sound.”

Bucky shook his head in mock dismay and looked at the map again. Why did she always have to use his last name instead of his first? Like she was deliberately putting a distance between them. After a few minutes, he said, “Why do you always do that? Use my last name, I mean.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable, then said, “Sergeant or Winter Soldier seems so formal.”

“Funny. Did they teach you how to make jokes like that at the Black Widow school?”

“They did actually. It works wonders when you want a target to let down his guard before you strike.” She cocked her head then rolled her eyes when he stared back with equal stubbornness. “What do you want me to call you?”

“You could just call me Bucky. Everyone else does.”

“Ugh. I’m fine with being called Natasha since I’m yet to meet an American who doesn’t butcher my name, but I draw the line at Bucky.”

“Really.” He folded his arms across his chest, doing this best not to let his amusement show.

“You’re—You’re Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, a hero from the Second World War. You’re the former Winter Soldier. Even brainwashed you were one of the deadliest assassins the world has known, one of the deadliest people _I_ have ever known. Bucky is”—Natalia waved her hand dismissively—“some side-kick from an old comic book.”

Unable to keep a straight face, he said, “I’m sorry my name offends your delicate sensibilities.”

“I’m sorry you have a ridiculous name,” she said, managing to keep a perfectly straight face.

He sighed theatrically. “Would James suit your preferences better?”

She smirked. “James will do just fine.”

“I’m glad, Natalia.” It had been a while since Bucky spoken Russian, but the pronunciation of her name rolled off his tongue, easy as anything.

“What did I tell you? You Americans always butcher it.” Her nose wrinkled adorably when she smiled. It was her real smile, too. The small one he had only seen when it was just the two of them.

Then she shifted and something glinted at the hollow of her throat. Her necklace. The silver one with the arrow on it. The mark of the archer. Barton’s mark on her. Small and delicate, and entirely capable of gutting him like a fish.

He couldn’t hide his reaction. She was standing too close to him, looking right at him. The ache was lodged too deeply in his bones, the wound too deep to hide.

It clawed at him. The jealousy he usually managed to keep at bay. The loss.

She didn’t want him anymore and that was fine, it was her choice. He wasn’t gonna try to change her mind just because he couldn’t let go of the past. He didn’t like the whole soulmate business any more than she did. It was just—

He didn’t know what her soulmark had looked like before the Red Room butchers had removed it and he’d never had the heart to ask her about it, but he had a pretty good guess. His had been two red triangles forming an hourglass, so hers would probably have been a red star. It was gone now as was his Gone before they’d met the first time. If this world had been a merciful one, the bond would have gone with them. It hadn’t. Of course, it hadn’t. Nothing was ever that easy.

Pain throbbed through his left arm. Fire spreading through veins he no longer had. He tore his gaze away from the necklace and looked at his arm. Half to reassure himself that it wasn’t actually on fire, and half to stop torturing himself.

It was fine. He was fine. It was all in his head—

Fire without heat. Without flames.

Natalia was speaking. He couldn’t make out her words.

Throbbing pain. He couldn’t—

Darkness tried to envelop him, and he let it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn’t mean to end the chapter on such a angsty note. ~~I mean, the plan was pretty angsty, but not Bucky blacks out from pain kind of angstly, ahem.~~
> 
> Coming up next: Dealing with feelings like the messed-up people they are


End file.
